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“I found a recipe for Earl Grey lemonade and it made me curious. It has been very hot here recently and I have been drinking a fair amount of half-tea, half-lemonade that my fiance’s mother...”
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“This is another tea I bought, mainly because I like Earl Grey. It is really one of my favorite [fruit flavored] teas. Surprisingly, I haven’t had all that many different brands of it, nor do...”
Read full tasting note

“I am kind of confused by the myriad of Earl Greys that Twining’s seems to offer. I am now in Heathrow Airport (London) on my way to Madagascar and I had a bagged EG that wasn’t the...”
Read full tasting note

From Twinings

To savour the full flavour of our teas, bring water to boil, and pour over the tea as soon as it reaches boiling. Over-boiling will cause oxygen to be reduced, making the tea taste “flat”. Brew 2-4 minutes or to desired taste.

140 Tasting Notes

I found a recipe for Earl Grey lemonade and it made me curious. It has been very hot here recently and I have been drinking a fair amount of half-tea, half-lemonade that my fiance’s mother has started to buy. The recipe was basically the half-tea and half-lemonade with the tea part being Earl Grey.

I made a strong cup (1 bag steeped for 10 minutes) and poured in some lemonade I made yesterday for Memorial Day. It was about 3/4 Earl Grey and 1/4 lemonade. At first it was a yummy mix with a splash of bergamot mixing with the lemons. Then it kept getting tarter and tarter.

So I drank it down and put in enough lemonade to bring the mix to 1/2 Earl Grey and 1/2 lemonade. Then I put in a spoonful of sugar and mixed it well. The color now looks closer to the half-and-half store-bought mix. Now it is yummy with a splash of that bergamot at the end. The sugar made it sweeter, but I think it toned down the tartness too much. But I think that you would want an equal 1/2 and 1/2 mix for this Earl Grey Lemonade.

I might have to make a bigger bottle of this the next time we make lemonade. I really like it, but I don’t think my family will enjoy it as much. So I will have to make two bottles of lemonade. I think this is a very nice way to enjoy Earl Grey on a hot summer day.

I wonder if it would work well with different tea blends? It is a good thing that I might have to experiment because it is supposed to be very hot this summer. I just have to make sure that we have a fresh supply of lemons to keep the house stocked with lemonade because I don’t like using the lemon juice in the bottle. That makes the lemonade taste chemically and fake.

Edit: I think I was jumping to conclusions about the sugar. It has been sitting for a while and now the bergamot is jumping up and down again playing with that sugar. Balance has never tasted so yummy!

This is another tea I bought, mainly because I like Earl Grey. It is really one of my favorite [fruit flavored] teas. Surprisingly, I haven’t had all that many different brands of it, nor do I have it as often as I would like. ://

One of the reasons I like it so much is because I find the aroma almost INTOXICATING! Nice aroma greeted me right away filling the air around me. :)) How I have missed this tea! Sometimes I think not having a tea too often [even a favorite tea], is a good thing. It makes me realize & appreciate how special the tea is! Sometimes I’m an odd egg.

The cup is a nice light brown color with a fantastic bergamot aroma. The tea base is probably Ceylon, which I like, but I think the tea base could be a little stronger. The bergamot seems to cover up the tea flavor more than I would like. :// Less bergamot flavoring would help accomplish this, giving more balance to the tea flavor itself. A longer steep & hotter temperature might also bring out the tea flavor. I’m not sure if the bergamot is all natual, which does make for a better cup of Earl Grey.

More tinkering and a review update may be necessary. Overall, this is a nice cup of Earl Grey, and worth the price-although not my favorite brand. A fine hot cup of tea, and I can’t wait to cold brew this soon. :))

HAPPYINDEPENDENCEDAYEVERYONE!! :))

This song is by Brian Setzer. He’s an underrated guitarist and he’s a good singer. It is a bit different, but I like it!:

Earl Grey is also one of my favorites. And Brian Setzer is one of my favorites as well. I once went to see the Stray Cats because they were opening for some guy… who turned out to be Stevie Ray Vaughn. I had no idea who Vaughn was at the time – was an excellent concert.

I cut open a bag and brewed this in a tea strainer with pleasantly good results. It tasted a bit stronger and more robust than brewing it in a bag. Also a bit stronger than the loose leaf version sold in the tins. Try it!

I am kind of confused by the myriad of Earl Greys that Twining’s seems to offer. I am now in Heathrow Airport (London) on my way to Madagascar and I had a bagged EG that wasn’t the typical yellow-pouch one but instead a black with “The Earl Grey” on it. But when I go to Twinings’ site it seems that perhaps it’s just a packaging redesign? I dunno, but I’m sticking it under here anyway.

So yeah, I haven’t had tea in it seem s like forever. I have been running around like crazy trying to get my apartment packed up and get ready to go into the field. Also, the weather decided to give me a big F-you and be exceedingly hot and humid for the last couple of days, so not hot-tea weather even if I did get a little break. But now finally I have time to relax in my layover in London and I finally got a pot of tea. Twining’s isn’t my favorite, but I actually enjoyed my pot of tea way more than I did last time. Maybe they did a slight reblend, or maybe I just appreciate the base tea more this time around, but it was nice and well rounded, and not bitter or astringent at all. Very pleasant and welcome after the plane ride.

Another tea I get to decupboard! I do enjoy this one, and will revisit it.

Oh, and has anyone else heard the Twinings radio advert? I heard it on the drive last night…was amazed that a tea company was advertising on the radio! And it made me realize that I wasn’t pronouncing the name right. Woops!

Few years ago I had the habit to drink Earl grey every morning at work.I liked tea especially because I was not a great coffee drinker.
I was buying any type of Earl Grey in tea bags and often very cheap ones (I was drinking a lot of cups !)

One day I had a cup of one of this cheap Earl Grey and just behind a cup of Twinning’s Earl Grey…it was a revelation ! The difference of taste was so evident.
I understood I had to taste and explore other teas and I began from this date to increase my interest for teas and began to use almost exclusively loose leaf tea.

Even if I know Twinning’s Earl grey is made of “dust in bags”, I should thank twinning for the electroshock. However it is a “regular” tea, classic, made to be appreciated by many publics.

This is a very comfortable tea and it is quite nice.

I continue drinking it some morning at the office when I am stuck with an empty tea tin and by the way need to buy tea at the local supermarket.

Preparation

I like your story. Many of us have stories like that one too.
I used to drink Good Earth Tea in the late 1970’s when I could only buy the tea bags at their restaurants and not in the supermarket. I didn’t drink any loose tea until this year!

The same types of teas certainly do taste different when it comes to quality :) If you like the Twinings pre bagged version you will enjoy Clippers Earl Grey which you can also get pre bagged. I used to be a Twinings Earl Grey fan until I tried Clipper and I have been happy for the change ever since, price wise they are about the same anyway. Clippers version is stronger in both black tea and bergamot flavour :)

Also backlogged. This is what I had this afternoon with the boyfriend. You may regard the following post as a collaboration.

Apparently these bags are getting a wee bit on in age, most likely, and haven’t been stored all that strictly according to what is best for the tea.

I could definitely pick up a citrus-y flavour, although it reminded me a bit more of lemon than of anything else. Something acidic, definitely, thought the boyfriend. We settled on citric acid.

The tea itself was rather bland. After a short while when it had developed a bit, read: steeped a little bit longer, it developed a little more character although not very much.

It did bring on the question of ‘astringency’, though. WTF is that? I’ve searched high and low for a proper easily understandable explanation of what this is supposed to taste like. I know it’s one of them ‘official technical terms’, but it has just never ever been a word that I have associated with any sort of flavour.

On the contrary, I work in a hospital lab, and when we talk about ‘stringency’ it has something to do with the environtment in which a given test is conducted being EXACTLY identical each time. Temperature and reaction times and such things. ‘Astringency’ sounds like the opposite of this and in the lab it wouldn’t really be all that good. It’s just the first thought that pops into my head, and it’s really confusing when talking flavour.

Hence, it’s really difficult for me to wrap my head around it not only being a sort of flavour, but also something good. I know that it has something to do with how tannins affect the mucus membranes of the tongue and such. But still.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we decided that this particular sensation that we found in it must be what people meant when they talked about astringency. I described it as something that could be mistaken for bitterness and the boyfriend, apparently having more imagination than me, said slightly like soap but not. After some consideration the soap was the conclusion we went with.

And then the boyfriend said he would award it 3 out of 5 chainsaws, which I thought on a 1-100 scale would translate to 60. And then he haggled me up to 65 on the grounds that chainsaws are cooler.

(It may take a couple of tries to make the slider hit 65 exactly. Bear with me if I have to edit a few times.)

I whole heartedly agree with the soapy comment, and that chainsaws get bonus points for being awesome. On the astringency thing, I’ve adlibbed that its like how dry my mouth feels after drinking. But, I’m not 100%, just like I’m trying to figure out “malty” tea.

I believe that astringency is that sensation of your mouth being dry after drinking something. If you touch your tongue to a very astringent substance that is the sense. We did it in chemistry (and this is about the only thing I remember from chem class).

Interestingly enough, I just happened to be looking for information on green teas and came across this on astringency in the FAQ from Den’s Teas:

Q: What is the taste of astringency? Is it different from bitterness?

A: Astringency is a feeling rather than a taste. It’s something you can feel in the body (a feeling in your mouth) of the tea. It is also the “puckering” sensation. In the medical definition, astringency is the tendency to draw together or constrict tissue, to pucker. People confuse the taste of bitterness and astringency. Bitterness is one of four tastes – bitter, sweet, sour and salty – that are picked up in the mouth and sent to the brain. The bitterness in tea comes from caffeine, and astringency comes from catechin (tannin). The astringency overlays the tastes and adds a weight or thickness to the tastes.

I always think of Sea Breeze toner/astringent when I think of astringency. Which could be why I have negative feelings towards astringency. But I think that fits in with what Carolyn found so maybe I wasn’t too far off.

I keep thinking of beer when people say malty. I have to say that I am deeply forever grateful that I have never encountered a tea that tasted of beer. I sincerely hope such a tea does not and will never exist. Needless to say I don’t like beer at all, not one little bit.

Astringency… the best way to describe it is the feeling of all the saliva in your mouth suddenly disappearing. The best example is if you bit into a banana peel. Some wines have a “drying” feeling on the tongue as well!

I edited this tea so that I could backlog it, specifically to warn. I don’t just like Earl Grey tea. Let me acquaint you with my impressions of Earl Grey tea. It was the first blend of tea that I had heard of and had exposure to, early in my life. To fully establish my geekness, lets say that I loved Star Trek the Next Generation. (fellow fans are already seeing where this is going.)

I would watch it non-stop when I was really little, instead of most cartoons. The great diplomat and my then-hero Jean Luc Picard drank this tea in times of severe emotional duress. It soon symbolized a refuge and an ultimate soother to any challenged hero.

I pleaded my parents to buy me some in the most heart-plucking manner. They did so. They bought me…Twinings. I hated it. Didn’t just hate it. Couldn’t stand it. And disillusionment spiraled in my poor head. THIS was what Jean Luc drank? How was the actor able to maintain composure for the camera not to mention to convey the general impression that his character liked such a horrible drink?!

Years later I understood when I tasted Adagio’s Earl Grey Bravo, that Picard wouldn’t wash his cup out with the watery slurry that Twinings tries to pass off as Earl Grey. He would gag at the horrible mildness. He would recoil in horror at the missing bergamot notes. He would shake his hands in fury at the now sullied name of Earl Grey and bitterly cry “KHAN!!”

I’ve geeked this post out beyond good judgment. I need to leave before people try and track this IP to my house.

We went out for brunch yesterday and I was feeling like a hot drink when we got there. The restaurant had bagged tea by Twinnings so I gave this one a try since I liked the Lady Grey a few weeks ago. The bergamont was well balanced with the black tea base for me. Not too in my face, but not too much in the background. I also really enjoyed the black tea base on this
I will be on the hunt for the a loose leaf sample of this and the Lady Grey. I am curious to see how the loose compares with the bagged tea.